


The Lesson

by padfootagain



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fun, M/M, Silly, gabriel is trying to be a better person and Crowley loses his dahlias
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 23:22:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootagain/pseuds/padfootagain
Summary: Gabriel has lost touch with humanity altogether. To teach him a lesson, God decides to send him to Earth as a mortal. Of course, She had to make him land in the middle of Crowley’s beautiful dahlias…





	The Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> First part of a series, it was supposed to be a one-shot but got completely out of hand...  
Tell me what you think of it :)

Gabriel really doesn’t have a clue what’s going on right now.  
A minute ago, he was in heaven, drinking tea with Michael, and laughing at some poor ridiculous angel, who had knocked a whole pile of their old files off and therefore had to spend their afternoon putting it all back the way it was before.  
And then he was summoned. By God herself. Or well, the Metatron, to be precise, as no one really talks to Her directly. But talking to the Metatron is like talking to God after all, he is Her voice. And he is the one devoted to take care of all the tiny insignificant business that God Herself is too busy to take care of herself.  
Gabriel is rather surprised by the summon, but he is an Archangel, after all. And more than that he is the Archangel Fucking Gabriel. He is something of importance, up there, in Heaven, and is quite proud of his influence and reputation throughout the angelic organization.  
And yet, how fast has his world come to crumble…  
“But, there must be a mistake, I mean… what would She want to punish me for?” Gabriel tries to argue.  
He can’t be sentenced to something. He just can’t. Why… Where was that all coming from anyway?  
“You have grown too much apart from the humans you are meant to help and protect,” the Metatron replies in a calm, slow voice.  
“That's… with all due respect, that’s a misunderstanding.”  
“God knows best.”  
“Of course, She does. But I am…”  
“You shall see the benefit of Her teaching in the end, even if for now, Her decision appears all but mysterious to you. You will grow to learn the lesson She means to teach you.”  
“What shall I do then?”  
After all, Gabriel can’t defy God. She for sure knows better than him. His ego is ready to accept only this limitation, but this one, it can’t deny.  
“You shall experience the world as a human.”  
“What?!”  
“You will be sent to Earth under your mortal form, and shall remain there as long as you need to learn the lesson God has prepared for you.”  
“But… like… I could stay for several days?! I can’t stay down there for days! What about that terrible air they breathe, and this disgusting food and… hang on… if I’m mortal, does that mean I have to eat?! I can’t sully my ethereal body with this!”  
“You shall leave like a mortal for as long as necessary for you to learn the people you are meant to help.”  
“This is…”  
But he stops himself before he would let out the word. He can’t say that it was all ridiculous. Blasphemy and all that. He reckons he is in enough trouble already.  
“When am I leaving?”  
The Metatron smiles.  
“Now, of course.”  
And before Gabriel can protest, the world around him is of a blinding white, and he is gone.  
—————————————————-  
Crowley is so proud of his garden. He’s always loved plants, he’s always loved watching them grow (into perfection, using a little bit of his voice). And in the South Downs, near the limestone cliffs and chalky rocks, in the cottage he and Aziraphale have bought after the almost-end-of-the-world incident, he created a welcoming and rather furnished garden. Aziraphale is not one to complain about it, first because he can see how the garden makes the demon happy, and whatever makes Crowley happy instantly makes Aziraphale happy as well, but also because Crowley has turned the garden into the loveliest place to read a good book. Under the warm summer sun, sitting on the wooden bench Crowley has placed there for him (of course, the demon has never admitted that adding a bench to the garden was meant for the angel, but Aziraphale is not a fool, not anymore, at least), with the sweet perfume of blooming jasmine, lilac and hydrangea, it makes it perfect for the angel to get lost in a good book. And that is precisely what he is doing at that moment.  
It is a rare copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray he is devouring now, that Oscar Wilde signed for him a long time ago - with a tender note that had made Crowley doubt the angel’s purity for a while too, until Aziraphale denied it with a blush and used the obvious fact that there was already someone in his heart when he had met the author in question, to which Crowley had been the one to fiercely blush and hiss a little.  
Aziraphale is not surprised at all when Crowley joins him on the bench, takes off his dark sunglasses, that he carefully places in the pocket of his black shirt, and lies down to rest his head on the angel’s laps. Actually, Aziraphale has been waiting for Crowley to join him on the bench. It is almost a habit by now, really. A habit nor Aziraphale nor Crowley have managed to get quite used to, even now, that they have been free for several years from both Heaven and Hell.  
They can be close now. As close as they have always wanted and fantasized and hoped for, and they are. It doesn’t mean either of them has grown accustomed to how lucky they both are to have each other though.  
Aziraphale adjusts his position on the bench a little to give Crowley more room to unfold his long legs, and lowers a hand from his precious book to Crowley’s burning hair, eliciting a content sigh from the demon as he closes his eyes.  
He must admit that this life is a rather good one. A quiet cottage near the sea, crowded with Aziraphale’s old books and a large garden for Crowley to terrorize as many plants as he wants. And he’s with Aziraphale now. They live together, and drink their tea in the morning while they read the newspaper, and they go out to eat ice-creams in the afternoon, and organize picnics by the sea, and dinners home in the trembling light of burning candles, and they go to bed together, and hold each other as they fall asleep…  
… and they can kiss, and hold hands, and touch, run fingers through hair and peck smiles and all of this tastes a little bit too much like paradise for the demon’s heart to handle.  
He loves it anyway.  
They’ve been free from Hell and Heaven for a decade now. Or well, it will soon be a decade, in one week, to be exact. It coincides with their anniversary too. One year after the almost-Armageddon. After a year of dates at the Ritz, and picnics in Saint James’s Park, and holding hands along the Thames, and stealing kisses in the bookshop, and faking they didn’t hear people mistaking them for husbands so they wouldn’t have to correct them. After a year they decided to move away from the busy town together, and Aziraphale proposed to get the arrangement one step further. Maybe it would make things easier and more practical to get a house. Maybe it would spare them the bother of having people mistaken their relationship. And maybe he wanted to spend the rest of eternity by Crowley’s side, and is it not what marriage is all about, after all? A promise to be there, whatever may happen?  
Crowley agreed that it would make things clear for the new neighbours, and might drive a few conservative old ladies mad, and he’s a demon still, so how could he miss the occasion to mess up with narrow-minded elders? And maybe he also wanted to spend all eternity with Aziraphale, and if he had made that promise to stay with him forever long before, maybe he would enjoy making the statement official now.  
It was almost nine years ago that they took their vows, and the thought brings Crowley to gently stroke the silvery ring around his finger, where a pair of wings is engraved. He opens his eyes to glimpse at Azirphale’s matching golden ring, wrapped around a finger that holds his book up to read.  
They’re lucky. Unbearably, cheesily, disgustingly lucky, and it makes Crowley so annoyingly happy.  
He closes his eyes again, drinking in the sun that warms up his eyelids, enjoying the way the angel soothingly runs his fingers through his hair.  
“Your lilac smells divine, dear,” Aziraphale compliments him, and Crowley can’t refrain a little smile.  
Aziraphale is distracted from his book for good. After six thousand years of companionship (and secret longing), he knows the angel by heart. He might fake an innocent tone, but he merely wants to talk with Crowley. About nothing in particular, really, just talk, maybe hold hands at one point while the sun warms their two frames, and they’ll probably share a few kisses on the way too. Crowley grins at the thought.  
Temptation accomplished.  
“I’ve made sure they would,” he replied without bothering opening his eyes.  
“Oh, dearest, really, you ought to stop terrifying these poor things!”  
“May I remind you how many plants you managed to make grow with your ‘all love and sweetness method’ when you were a gardener for Warlock, huh?”  
Aziraphale let out a revolted huff.  
“Well, your jasmine didn’t die when I complimented it yesterday, did it?” he whispers under his breath, just loudly enough for Crowley to catch his words.  
In response, Crowley jolts upright.  
“You did WHAT?!” he shouts through the quiet garden, but Aziraphale fakes innocence, the ghost of an amused smile tugging at his lips.  
And Crowley notices it. Oh, of course he does. Aziraphale can be so horridly annoying sometimes…  
“Me? Nothing.”  
“How many timessss do you have to tell you? No kindnesssss!” Crowley hisses in his anger.  
But Aziraphale stares at him with such a tender glance now, as he puts his book down on his lap to cup Crowley’s cheeks.  
“Oh, you foul fiend…”  
But in that soft and playful tone, Crowley knows that the words truly mean You’re such a nice soul.  
“I’m not niccce,” he replies with a pout.  
“Of course you are,” Aziraphale replies, before pulling the demon to him and kissing him gently on the lips.  
“ ’m not.”  
“Yes, you are, dear.”  
“You bastard.”  
“I know that too.”  
They chuckle against each other’s lips, and kiss again. And again. And again…  
Until they hear a loud thudding noise coming from behind them, in the back of the garden. It comes from… yes, definitely around Crowley’s red dahlias.  
Crowley is on his feet before a second has the time to tick, and Aziraphale has turned on the bench as well, in the direction of the noise.  
A groan rises from behind the tall flowers. Human, without a doubt. Male, judging by the sound of the voice.  
Where the hell is he coming from?  
“Oh dear… he must be hurt, he must have climbed over the wall,” Aziraphale whispers, standing up as well and nervously twisting his clasped hands.  
“And landed three meters away from the fence? What was he doing on top of the wall anyway? Diving into dahlias?”  
“What should I know? But he must be hurt. We should… go and take a look.”  
Which, as Crowley perfectly knows, means ’you should go and take a look’.  
He rolls his eyes.  
“Should I call the police?” Aziraphale asks, following Crowley, a couple of steps behind.  
“Nah, no need. I’ll handle it, angel. Must be drunk or something.”  
Aziraphale comes a little closer to the demon, which can only make Crowley smile. As if he would get in a fight if there was to be one anyway… But now that he thinks about it, Crowley guesses that the angel might, if there were to be a real danger. The idiotic selfless being of love…  
They walk through the patch of grass splayed before the dahlias, and Crowley notices the broken plants in the blink of an eye.  
“My dahlias!” he exclaims with both anger and distress in his voice.  
“Oh, my love,” Aziraphale tries to soothe him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe a little miracle…”  
“No! No! Angel, it took me years to have them so red!”  
“I know, dearest, I’m sorry.”  
“My dahlias!”  
“I know. But there’s someone in the dahlias, honey, we should…”  
“Aziraphale?”  
Both the angel and the demon freeze. It’s not difficult to recognize Gabriel’s voice. He’s been haunting their nightmares for years.  
They exchange a surprised, then shocked, then scared look, before focusing on the dahlias again. Taking a few more steps towards the plants, they easily spot the archangel indeed, still lying head first in the earth.  
Crowley moves to stand between Aziraphale and Gabriel, and the angel has no trouble recognizing the dangerous look in the demon’s eyes, along with the little sparks coming out of the tip of his fingers.  
“Crowley, no. He seems hurt,” Aziraphale stops him, but Crowley turns to him with an astonished look on his features.  
“He tried to kill you, angel. He wanted to kill you!”  
“But he didn’t, did he now?”  
Crowley clenches his jaw, hellfire burning in his eyes with his devouring rage, and Aziraphale heaves a sigh.  
Meanwhile, Gabriel has sat up in the dahlias, destroying a few more flowers in the process.  
“Aziraphale! Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”  
“Well, not ussss,” Crowley spits back.  
“Still with your best friend, I see.”  
Crowley glares at him, and Aziraphale takes a step closer, coming right beside Crowley.  
“What are you doing here? I thought you were to leave us alone, now,” he asks back, making an effort close to a miracle to keep a polite tone.  
“Well, that’s quite a long story.”  
“Get out of here.”  
Crowley’s jaw and fists are clenched, and Aziraphale knows how close the demon is to miracle Gabriel in the depth of the Mariana Trench.  
“Well, I… I’m afraid I can’t,” Gabriel shakes his head, a touch of panic twisting his features.  
“You’d better miracle yourself out of this garden… no, actually, out of this town… no, no, out of this country before I have time to miracle it for you,” the demon spits.  
“Crowley…”  
“He tried to kill you!”  
Aziraphale heaves a sigh.  
“Look… why have you come here? We weren’t doing anything…” Aziraphale turns to Gabriel again.  
“No, I mean. I didn’t choose where I landed, I just… I was sent here.”  
“Sent here? By whom? For what?”  
“God. She… is punishing me.”  
Both Crowley and Aziraphale stared at him as their eyebrows shot up to their hairline.  
“Punishing you?”  
Gabriel nods, on the verge of tears. His white suit is stained with dark dirt and the green dye of broken leaves, his hair a mess. He looks desperate.  
“Apparently I’ve grown… too far from humans. I've… lost the point or…I don’t really know why I was sent here as a mortal.”  
“A mortal?” the demon and the angel ask in an astonished unison.  
“I’m stuck here in a mortal body for as long as I haven’t changed.”  
“Changed for what?”  
“I have no idea.”  
He looks up at them. Crowley the demon, and Aziraphale the angel. He hates both of them. They stopped the war that would end everything. They saved humanity, and for what? A garden? A cottage? A little bit of sun? It’s ridiculous. They’re a joke, an anomaly, and he wishes he and Beelzebub could have found a way to get rid of them both all those years ago.  
But he’s also alone, in a world he barely knows, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. And they are they only ones he can rely on, if they let him.  
“Help me.”  
Crowley snorts.  
“Yeah, of course, why not? Why not help the archangel who tried to burn him alive,” Crowley mocks, pointing at Aziraphale, and as he goes on, at himself. “And handed enough holy water to dissolve me.”  
“We haven’t always agreed on general politics…”  
“That is a euphemism, Gabriel,” Aziraphale replies in a harsh tone. “Crowley has a point, you did try to murder us.”  
“Yes, that’s true. But I’m sent here in a human’s body and I don’t know what I’m even supposed to do and have nowhere to go…”  
“Well, first, you can GET OUT OF MY GARDEN!” Crowley roars.  
“But…”  
“OUT!”  
Aziraphale makes a movement towards the archangel, but Crowley stops him.  
“He might be armed.”  
“I’m not. I’m human now!”  
“Oh, and we should take your word for it then?”  
“Crowley.”  
The demon stops to look at Aziraphale again. He seems hesitant, but determined too. Crowley knows this look. It’s the look that gets them both in trouble everytime. It’s the look that means I know it might be a bad idea, but it’s the right thing to do, and thus I must do it. And he hates that look…  
“Crowley and I will take you to the hotel. We’ll give you some money too, so you can pay for the room for a few days,” he decides, and Crowley wants to shout to the top of his lungs how annoying and wrong and stupid the angel is right now. Instead, he lets out a low groan.  
He has never managed to make Aziraphale change his mind, not in six thousand years, he doesn’t expect to win now.  
“Thank you,” is all Gabriel can manage to say.  
He stands up, and Crowley watches as he reveals the broken plants.  
And Gabriel is almost certain to see tears in the yellow, demonic eyes.  
“My dahlias…” Crowley breathes, and Aziraphale pats his shoulder.  
“I’m sorry, dear.”  
“It took my years…”  
“I know. But they’ll grow back. You’ll make them grow back.”  
“My dahlias…”  
Gabriel is more confused than ever…  
They guide him through the house, that Gabriel quickly examines as they walk through but doesn’t really care about lingering in. It feels warm and a little crowded, but in the most comforting way. As they walk through the kitchen, he notices the collection of herbs, the books about cooking and gardening, the many mugs of all colours and shapes, the many boxes of tea and cocoa, the light coming in from the large window. In the living room, the many shelves stacked with old books encircling the room, a large TV screen lost in the middle of them. A warm carpet, a comfortable sofa and two armchairs are set around a little glass table. He can’t deny that the place feels loved, even if he’s not an angel anymore, and can’t feel it the way he used to. But he doesn’t really want to linger around the two traitors, and he reckons that a hotel sounds like a good idea. He feels tired all of a sudden. And that’s when it hits him. He is tired. Instinctively, he knows he needs to sleep. He also feels a constant but quiet pain in his stomach. Is it what hunger feels like?  
The more he thinks about it, the more he is panicking. Crowley has already opened the front door and is ready to throw the (former) archangel out when Gabriel stops in his tracks, and leans against the large leathery sofa in an attempt to keep on standing.  
“Oh dear Lord…” he breathes, his heart speeding up, and the thought of his beating heart makes a new wave of panic course through his veins. “What am I gonna do? How… I don’t know how to do things like this…”  
“What are you talking about?” Aziraphale inquires with a frown, and Crowley hates the fact that he sees pity into his blue eyes.  
Really, pity for this murderer is the last thing they need.  
“I'm… I think I… my body needs to sleep.”  
“Well, we’re taking you to a hotel. You’ll have a comfortable bed and everything you need to sleep.”  
“But HOW?! How do I sleep?”  
“Oh…”  
Crowley and Aziraphale exchange a glance, but they don’t try to make the other understand the same message at all through this silent communication.  
Crowley tries to say this is the worst idea in the whole history of the universe and I am not helping this prick.  
Meanwhile, Aziraphale’s blue eyes are begging for we can’t leave him like this, he’s just a human now, after all.  
And Crowley, at this particular moment, hates both Aziraphale and himself. Himself because he knows that he loves Aziraphale too much to refuse anything he could possibly ask him. The bastard could ask for the stars, and Crowley would re-learn how to create them just for him. And he hates Aziraphale too because he knows perfectly well that he is looking at him with this particularly soft gaze because of which Crowley can’t refuse him anything.   
“Well, you… You just lie down in a bed. And close your eyes and try to think of something nice,” Aziraphale explains, gently taking Gabriel by the elbow to guide him towards the door.  
“Try to think of something nice?! That’s all? What nice things do you think about?”  
“Well… A good book, or some good food or…”  
“Or burning you in hellfire,” Crowley hisses behind his gritted teeth, making both Gabriel and Aziraphale glower at him.  
“I don’t even know what I did wrong,” Gabriel went on, and despite Aziraphale’s cold feelings towards the archangel, he can’t help but feel sorry for him. “I don’t know what I have to do to get back. What if I stay stuck here forever?”  
Crowley and Aziraphale exchange a panicked glance. They can’t allow that to happen…  
“I’m sure you’ll find something.”  
“What am I going to do? And I don’t have money… they still use money down here, right?”  
“Yes. We’ll give you some to get by for a few days.”  
“But then?”  
“Then… you’ll have to find a job and pay for yourself, I suppose.”  
“I can’t do it, Aziraphale. I can't…”  
Gabriel is shaking from the tip of his white shoes to his perfect hair (or well, usually perfect hair, the landing in Crowley’s dahlia has disturbed a couple of strands). Aziraphale makes him sit on the sofa while he turns to speak with Crowley, taking his arm and pulling him into the kitchen. By the window, they can see the garden still bathed in sunlight, in which two sparrows decide to settle to sing, but they spend a moment commenting on what could have caused the perfect garden to look so messy now with all these broken dahlias.  
“We have to help him,” the angel decides with urgency shaking his voice.  
“What?! Of course not! He tried to kill you, angel! There wasn’t even any form of trial.”  
“I know…”  
“Have you forgotten how mean he was to you all these years?! All his remarks and cruel little comments?!”  
“I haven’t forgotten any of those, and you know it.”  
“Then how on Earth can you think for a second about helping him?!”  
“Because… if we don’t, he might never be sent back.”  
“Perhaps a lifetime on Earth will do him good,” Crowley replies with darkness in his voice.  
“We’ll never get rid of him then,” Aziraphale reasons his demon. “Besides, we’re better than him. We have to be better than him. Better than all of them. Our side has to be better than theirs.”  
Crowley sighs, running a hand through his hair and making the ginger strands messy. He hates it when Aziraphale does that, when he chooses the perfect arguments to convince him.  
“We can’t leave him,” Aziraphale adds in a shy voice.  
“He wouldn’t do the same for us. He would kill us both if he had the chance.”  
“But we’re not him.”  
“He doesn’t deserve your kindness, angel. Not after all he’s done to you.”  
“No, maybe he doesn’t. But he doesn’t need to deserve it for me to grant it to him anyway.”  
Crowley sighs again, but he can’t find words to reply. Deep down, he thinks about a day long gone, spent on the top of a wall encircling Eden, watching the first storm wet the world and a couple with a flaming sword disappear in the distance. He thinks about an angel offering him protection from the cold rain under his wing. He thinks about his smile. He thinks about all the times they met after that.  
He doesn’t think that he deserved Aziraphale’s kindness then either, but the angel granted it to him anyway. He isn’t even sure that even now, he fully deserves it. He’s just lucky to own it.  
He rolls his eyes and picks up his dark sunglasses from his pocket to put them on again.  
“Fine,” he answers moodily. “But I won’t be nice with him. And only for a week. One week and he goes to that hotel, and I never want to see him again. Is that clear?”  
Aziraphale nods, giving him a tender smile that Crowley knows means you’re nicer than you pretend to be again. But Crowley is too preoccupied by the (former) archangel sitting on their sofa to correct the angel this time.  
They walk back into the living room, and Aziraphale rests a soothing hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. The man really looks distraught. Crowley almost feels sorry for him. But not quite.  
“You… can stay here for a few days, if you want. Crowley and I will help you understand what’s going on. And once you know what you have to do, you can accomplish your mission and go home.”  
Gabriel slowly nods.  
“If you’re tired, you should sleep. We have a spare bedroom upstairs. Come on.”  
Gabriel follows the angel upstairs, well aware of Crowley’s glare as he walks up the stairs behind him, but he chooses to act as if he could ignore it. Instead, he follows Aziraphale into a little bedroom, that is clearly used as an office as well, judging by the many papers on the desk.  
“Here, lie down on the bed, close your eyes, and try to calm down. It can take a little while to fall asleep, although, you truly look exhausted,” Aziraphale guides the distraught (former) archangel to the bed.  
He and Crowley exit the room as soon as Gabriel has closed his eyes, and the angel uses a miracle to lock the door.  
“Can you tell me now what the hell you’re playing at, angel?” Crowley hisses through gritted teeth as they walk back downstairs. “You can’t be helping him just to be good, I know you well enough for that.”  
“Not so loud,” Aziraphale admonishes, nervously glancing up the stairs.  
“We shouldn’t be helping him!”  
“Because letting him wander off across town is a better idea, perhaps?” the angel snaps back.  
“Yes!”  
“No! We should keep an eye on him. Make sure of what he’s up to. And what better way to do so than to keep him here?”  
“He could be trying to kill us!”  
“I know. Which is why we should make sure he doesn’t get the chance to gather some help to do so. Better to keep one’s enemies close, right?”  
Crowley opens his mouth to reply, but smiles instead.  
“Besides, it’s the decent thing to do, really,” Aziraphale goes on. “No matter what he has done in the past, we can’t abandon him. We need to be better than that.”  
“You, bastard.”  
“Now, now… no need for that kind of language,” Aziraphale fakes to admonish, when in reality, he’s smiling and blushing a little. “We need to keep a close watch on him, and make sure no one else is sent down here.”  
“Or up here.”  
They exchange a wary glance.  
“I’ll write the runes on the front door, you take the back,” Crowley orders, and they both move to the kitchen to get a chalk.  
Before they part to protect their home, Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand in his and gives him a reassuring smile.  
“We’ll be just fine. As long as we’re together, we’ll be just fine.”  
Crowley answers with a tender smile, cupping the angel’s face.  
“I know.”  
“I love you.”  
“I love you too. Now, come on. Let’s make sure no one can come in uninvited.”  
They kiss before parting, and half an hour later, the two doors of their cottage are protected by a series of runes written in white chalk.  
In the distance, coming from the sea, dark clouds gather through the sky, slowly drifting towards the cottage, and the demon watches them roll through the firmament. Crowley wonders what the future might bring. With Gabriel back in their life, he guesses nothing good is to be expected in the coming days. He steps back inside the house and closes the door behind him, leaving the clouds behind to rest his eyes on his angel instead, who is preparing some tea for both of them.   
If one thing is for certain, it is that he will make sure Aziraphale is safe, no matter the cost.


End file.
